The Measure of American Religious Traditions: Theoretical and Measurement Considerations

Woodberry, Robert D.; Park, Jerry Z.; Kellstedt, Lyman A.; Regnerus, Mark; Steensland, Brian

doi:10.1093/sf/sos121

Cited by 80 publications

(76 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Respondents can also identify as having no religious affiliation or no religious preference. To date this is the best scheme to classify religious affiliation using the GSS (Woodberry, et al, 2012). Following Scheitle and Adamczyk (2010), we also consider those who affiliate with strict, high-cost religious groups: Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Seventh Day Adventists.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leaving my religion: Understanding the relationship between religious disaffiliation, health, and well-being

Fenelon

Danielsen

2016

Social Science Research

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Religious disaffiliation—leaving the religious tradition in which one was raised for no religious affiliation in adulthood—has become more common in recent years, though few studies have examined its consequences for the health and well-being of individuals. We use an innovative approach, comparing the health and subjective well-being of religious disaffiliates to those who remain affiliated using pooled General Social Survey samples from 1973 through 2012. We find that religious disaffiliates experience poorer health and lower well-being than those consistently affiliated and those who are consistently unaffiliated. We also demonstrate that the disadvantage for those who leave religious traditions is completely mediated by the frequency of church attendance, as disaffiliates attend church less often. Our results point to the importance of the social processes surrounding religious disaffiliation and emphasize the role of dynamics in the relationship between religious affiliation and health.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leaving my religion: Understanding the relationship between religious disaffiliation, health, and well-being

Fenelon

Danielsen

2016

Social Science Research

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“…In their update to the 2000 article, Woodberry et al. (:68–69) suggest that these respondents may be divided based on belief in god or life after death, or frequency of prayer or religious service attendance. Further, they call for these respondents who do not make the cut as Evangelicals to be placed in a “nominal religion category” (Woodberry et al.…”

Section: Conceptualizing Religious Identificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Further, they call for these respondents who do not make the cut as Evangelicals to be placed in a “nominal religion category” (Woodberry et al. :69). However, it is clear that “affiliation even of a nominal sort is deemed important for personal and social reasons” (Roof and McKinney :77).…”

Section: Conceptualizing Religious Identificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring Religious Identification in the United States

Lehman

Sherkat²

2018

Scientific Study of Religion

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A popular measure of religious identification poses several problems for researchers because of its lack of conceptual and historical grounding. The scheme truncates continuity along the well‐established sect‐church continuum, and poses problems for both theory and methodological operationalization. We reiterate the importance of key sociological and historical foundations for classifying religious groups, provide an empirical assessment of a more exacting scheme compared to the newly dominant classification, and supply a coding system for the General Social Survey which could also be applied to other studies. We conclude by discussing the usefulness of our categorization for advancing social science research on religious identification.

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“…There has been much debate on the classification of conservative, evangelical and/or fundamentalist Christians. We have chosen to go with the term evangelical for three reasons suggested by Woodberry et al (2012): (1) Using the term evangelical avoids confusing religious and political orientations; (2) movement leaders seem to prefer and be more comfortable with this term over conservative or fundamentalist; and (3) the umbrella organization for this population, The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), has chosen the term evangelical. 1 Smith (2000: 17) argues that there are no direct variables to measure conservative Protestants or evangelicals ''only proxy measures that work more or less well to mark them.''…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

My Friend is Gay, But… The Effects of Social Contact on Christian Evangelicals’ Beliefs about Gays and Lesbians

Baker

Brauner-Otto

2015

Review of Religious Research

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This paper examines the relationship between social contact with gays and lesbians and beliefs about homosexuality, and explicitly investigates whether this relationship is different for Christian evangelicals than for others. We find that although social contact with gays and lesbians is related to beliefs about homosexuality in ways predicted by social contact theory, those with a gay or lesbian friend hold more positive attitudes, this is not the case for Christian evangelicals. In fact, analyses reveal that the effect of social contact for Christian evangelicals is significantly less than the effect for non-evangelicals. Results suggest that social contact alone is not enough to positively change Christian evangelicals' beliefs about gay and lesbian individuals. This research adds to our knowledge about social contact by providing empirical evidence that all subgroups of the population are not affected equally by social contact with minority groups-an important piece of information for theoretical developments and policy makers.

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The Measure of American Religious Traditions: Theoretical and Measurement Considerations

Cited by 80 publications

References 17 publications

Leaving my religion: Understanding the relationship between religious disaffiliation, health, and well-being

Leaving my religion: Understanding the relationship between religious disaffiliation, health, and well-being

Measuring Religious Identification in the United States

My Friend is Gay, But… The Effects of Social Contact on Christian Evangelicals’ Beliefs about Gays and Lesbians

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